


The Thousand-Year Oath

by LadyEnterprise1701



Series: The Doctor and the Teacher [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 10, Baby Fluff, Clara didn't sign up for this, Episode AU: s10e06 Extremis, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Married Fluff, Missy meets Baby Jodie, The Doctor sticking his neck out for Missy (again)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-27 06:58:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16213841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyEnterprise1701/pseuds/LadyEnterprise1701
Summary: Three months after the end of "This Life We Choose," the Doctor learns the Daleks have sold Missy to the Executioners. But rescuing her will be anything but easy. For one thing, Clara isn't exactly thrilled about risking their lives and their baby's safety for Missy--and for another, intervening on Missy's behalf will require an oath that'll change their lives forever.





	1. Clara's Promise

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy-hey, I'm back! I'm very busy finishing up the third draft of my sci-fi novel and writing the first draft of my WWII story (not to mention getting ready for my sister's wedding in two weeks)--but Whouffaldi ideas are always lurking in the back of my head. This concept, especially, wouldn't leave me alone. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Three notes before you go on: 
> 
> 1) This short(er) story is a continuation of "This Life We Choose." If you haven't read that one first, just know that the Doctor and Clara tied the knot, Clara didn't stay dead at the end of "Face the Raven," and they have a wee bairn named Jodie. 
> 
> 2) Also, in "This Life We Choose" I rather audaciously messed with canonical chronology: "The Husbands of River Song" took place in between "Death in Heaven" and "Last Christmas" (see TLWC's Chapter 10). This will be important in Chapter 2. 
> 
> 3) Just like with "This Life We Choose," I have a Pinterest board for this story and (hopefully) the ones that'll follow! Link here: https://www.pinterest.com/impossiblegirl92/wip-the-doctor-the-teacher-series/

_London, England_

_September, 1894_

 

A peaceful silence hung over the cozy, well-furnished bedroom with the enormous wardrobe and the big heavy bed and the curtains that fluttered sleepily in the cool spring night. Far away, Big Ben chimed twelve times before settling down for another hour’s nap. A hansom’s wheels clattered along the cobblestones with a late-night passenger, but for the most part Paternoster Row lay quiet and serene, and inside the aformentioned spacious bed Clara Oswald slept like a rock. 

     The Doctor, however, did _not._ He half-sat, half-lay beside her with pillows bunched up behind his back, a big book propped up against his long, drawn-up legs, and his eyebrows so knotted that anyone would didn’t know better would assume he was trying to shrivel up the pages with that intense Scottish glare. 

     Actually, he was only concentrating. The book had come from the library downstairs—Vastra had handed it to him with a long, significant look that Clara, thankfully, hadn’t noticed—and the spine read, in swirly gilt letters, _Encyclopedia of All Known Planets, Universes, and Sundry Civilizations._ Clara had laughed tiredly when she saw it.   

     “I’m assumin’ the book’s bigger on the inside,” she’d managed to tease, her eyes heavy with exhaustion as she wriggled out of her Victorian clothes and into a light, sleeveless thing she’d borrowed from Jenny. He had glanced up, let his gaze wander from the top of her dark head to her small, pretty feet, and smiled back at her. 

     “Somethin’ like that,” he’d murmured. Even now he glanced nervously at her, worried she’d start peeking at the crinkled pages to see what had captured his interest. 

     Clara, however, wasn’t just sleeping: she was _snoring_. She lay on her side facing him, her left hand tucked underneath her pillow and her right lying on the mattress close to his hip. The Doctor half-smiled and laid a hand on her head, smoothing her hair with his thumb. Clara didn’t even move. 

     From the little cradle at the end of the bed, however, came the unmistakable sound of rustling. The Doctor froze, held his breath. From where he sat he could see blankets shifting underneath tiny, stretching limbs, and heard a couple of soft, equally tiny grunts and whimpers.

     _No no no, not yet!_ he thought desperately, hoping the plea projected across the bed to the faint little glimmer of consciousness, too weak yet to do much except brush his own. _Go back to sleep, you’re not due for another feedin’ for an hour yet—_

A thin, frightened wail shattered the quiet like nails on the TARDIS chalkboard. Clara gave a start and winced, her eyes still closed; the Doctor heard her let out an exhausted moan. 

     “Mmmph,” she whimpered, burying her nose deep into her pillow. “I’m up…”

     The Doctor raised an eyebrow and shut the book. “No, _I’m_ up.”

     Clara kept her round face smashed into the pillow. The Doctor set the book on the nightstand and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, tiptoeing around creaky floorboards to the cradle. In the dim light of the candle he’d left flickering on the nightstand he now saw all thirteen pounds of his three-month-old daughter, her eyes screwed shut and all her energy thrown into screaming her head off.  

     _“Mummy! I want Mummy! I’m scared! I’m cold! I’m hungry! Mummy!”_

“I know you want your mummy,” the Doctor murmured, lifting her up, “but don’t you think you could wait on that midnight snack just a _little_ longer, hmm? Ohhhh, come now…Jodie, Jodie, Jodie…”

     Jodie Oswald-Smith hiccuped, let out another shivery cry, and dropped her head on his shoulder. The Doctor patted her back soothingly, glanced at Clara. She still lay in an exhausted heap, probably trying to shut out the noise and get a few more precious minutes of rest before even his best attempts failed and Jodie _insisted_ on her mother’s attention. He didn’t blame Clara. It was the whole reason, after all, why they’d decided to break their self-imposed, temporary hiatus on time travel and pay a visit to the Paternoster Gang. Clara was overwraught and anxious about her tutoring work at St. Luke’s University; a new semester had started, she had a couple of pudding brains who needed extra coddling, and to top it all off she was the sleep-deprived mother of a highly intelligent half-Gallifreyan baby. She needed as much of a break from the 21st century as the Doctor could give her. 

     _Besides…if what I’m reading in that book is accurate, it’ll be the last time we do anything like this for a long, long time._

     “Shh-shh-shh,” he whispered when Jodie let out another raspy, frustrated cry. “Come here, let me show you something beautiful.”

     He went to the window and drew the curtain back—carefully, so the rings wouldn’t rattle and disturb his young human wife. Just as carefully he shifted Jodie, nestling her on her back in the crook of his arm. Her large, liquid baby-eyes narrowed a little in the moonlight before fastening on him and flooding with— _recognition. Trust. Relief._ She gave a soft, questioning little grunt. 

     _“Daddy?”_

“Mm-hmm, and if you behave I’ll tell you a story,” he whispered. “Look there, you see? You see that moon? Up there in the sky, all big and round—like your eyes and Mummy’s, come to think of it—and silvery? You see?”

     He waved his finger in Jodie’s face until her eyes locked on his fingertip, following it up and towards the sky. Again she winced a little in the light, but the low-hanging harvest moon captured her attention; her lips parted and she flexed her fingers against her cheek, her gaze never wavering. 

     “Once upon a time,” the Doctor whispered, “there was a teacher, a pudding brain, and a stupid old man who thought he’d do a clever thing and let the teacher be the hero for the day. So he took her and the pudding brain up to the moon on a particularly unpleasant day for the moon…and decided to sit back and let the teacher call the shots.”

     Jodie decided the moon was boring and turned her head back towards him. The Doctor ran his fingertip along the velvety curve of her cheek, catching her attention again before she could start nuzzling the front of _his_ nightshirt in search of that midnight snack. 

     “So the stupid old man, he says, ‘The teacher is smart, and much cleverer and kinder than me. She will know what to do, and she’ll do it well.’ And do you know what? She _did_. She did it better than he could’ve ever done. But she _also_ thought he’d left her forever…and that hurt the teacher more than anything he had ever said to her before that. And he’d said some pretty rude things, come to think of it.”

     Jodie sighed and shoved two fingers into her mouth, her eyes still on him. The Doctor ran his hand over her dark, feathery hair and the tender slope in her skull, the lingering reminder of the breathtaking day when her mother’s body had forced her out into the world.

     “The Teacher had every right to be angry with the Doctor, and every right to tell him to go far, far away. But do you know what, little Jodie? For some reason she _forgave_ him, and she let him stay…and after a few wee bumps and idiotic blunders, they decided ‘what the hell’ on a Christmas morning, and they made _you_. You came into this world on moonlight and snowflakes, Jodie, just like your mummy blew in on a leaf…and I will always protect you both.”

     “Moonlight and snowflakes. I like that.”

     Clara’s voice was a faint whisper, but he could tell even before he turned around that she was smiling. She lay on her other side now, facing the window, and still looked weary—but something in her eyes told him she’d accepted the inevitable without the slightest resentment. In fact, as she forced herself into a sitting position she held out her arms in a greedy, eager way. 

     “Let me have her,” she murmured. 

     “You’re sure?” he asked.

     “Quite sure,” Clara whispered, tossing a strand of hair out of her face. “C’mere, Doodlebug. Come here…”

     Jodie’s whole demeanor changed at her mother’s voice, but when she actually _saw_ Clara the Doctor could’ve sworn her face lit up like a Christmas tree. Her eyes brightened, she started smiling and fisting her hands underneath her chin, and she made several eager, hungry noises while Clara tugged pillows behind her back and unbuttoned the front of the nightgown. 

     “All right, all right, I’m moving as fast as I can!” Clara laughed softly. 

     “Patience is not one of her virtues,” the Doctor deadpanned, making his way back to his side of the bed. 

     Clara cut her dark eyes at him. “At least she comes by it honestly.”

     “And what _exactly_ are you implyin’, Mrs. Smith?”

     She just smiled in response and lowered her gaze to the baby, now nursing with noisy enthusiasm. The Doctor drew the blankets over his legs and clasped his hands in his lap to watch. 

     “I don’t think we ever actually said ‘what the hell’ on Christmas morning,” Clara murmured. 

     “Well, not in so many words, but—”

     “It seems a bit of a brash expression for a sacred holiday.”

     He raised his eyebrows at her. “Are you seriously criticizin’ my storytelling now?”

     “And you really shouldn’t use four-letter words with our baby.”

     The Doctor leaned back, giving her a look of high offense. She maintained her wide-eyed innocent expression for barely three seconds before she dissolved into giggles again and he realized, sheepishly, that she’d been pulling his leg. 

     “I’m against banter,” he said, trying to sound stern. “I’m on record against it. Especially in the middle of the night.”

     “Oh, you’re the King of Banter and you know it,” Clara retorted, sending a mischievous look in his direction as she pressed a kiss to the baby’s forehead—but she barely had time to lift her head before they heard a violent knock on the door. The Doctor stiffened and Clara instinctively tightened her arms around Jodie. 

     “Who is it?” the Doctor snapped. 

     “It is I!” a very familiar and very unwelcome voice cried in proud, defiant reply. “ _Strax!_ ” 

     “What do you want, Strax?” the Doctor demanded. 

     “I heard strange noises coming from this room and decided it would be most unwise to decide against investigating. Are you in any distress? Or would you like a couple of hand grenades, just in case?”

     Clara rolled her eyes. “We’re _fine_ , Strax.”

     “Miss Clara, is that you?”

     “Yes, of course it’s me! The baby just woke up and we’re talking.”

     “Giggling,” the Doctor muttered. “Like a couple of honeymooners—”

     “ _Shh!_ ” Clara hissed. (With a giggle.) 

     “The small human is disturbingly loud, then,” Strax said uneasily. “It might attract predators. Here, I insist upon your taking some defensive weapo—”

     “ _No!_ ” Clara squealed, jerking her legs up to hide her unbuttoned front as the door opened and Strax, looking more out of place in this Victorian setting than ever in a crisp white nightshirt, started to walk in. The Doctor flung back the blankets and sprang to his feet, reaching Strax before the Sontaran had a chance to reveal his stash of explosives. 

     “Grenades are _unnecessary_ ,” he hissed, shoving Strax back into the corridor, “and even if we _were_ in any danger, kindly remember that I am the Doctor, and I could defend myself and my family fifty-two different ways in just as many seconds before you ever pulled the pin on one of your grenades!”

     “All the same,” Strax said, his eyes gleaming with excitement, “it would be an alliance of the ages!”

     The Doctor glared at him. “Go to bed, Strax.”

     “Yes, sir. Will you take eggs with your toast in the morning?”

     “ _Strax_ …”

     “Goodnight, sir.” 

     The Sontaran made a stiff little bow and sauntered off, still gripping his precious grenades in his hands and holding his head and shoulders back with great pride. The Doctor waited until he was sure Strax had returned to his own room, then shut the door and stalked back to bed. Clara watched him, an impish look on her face. 

     “Sontarans,” the Doctor grumbled, flinging himself back into bed. “If they ever had a contest for ‘Most Annoying Species in the Universe,’ they’d win the grand prize.”

     “Is that what they’re labeled under in that old brick there?” Clara asked, nodding towards _Encyclopedia of All Known Planets, Universes, and Sundry Civilizations._

The Doctor stiffened. He’d forgotten about the book. “Probably.” 

     “Why _are_ you readin’ that, anyway?”

     “Because I don’t know everything. And I don’t have that particular book in my collection.” 

     Clara shifted Jodie from one side to another. “Maybe we should run by whatever intergalactic bookshop carries it, then.”

     “Maybe,” he grumbled. He slid himself down until he lay flat on his back, his fingers laced on his stomach. To his relief, she didn’t pursue the subject. 

     Jodie drifted back to sleep before the end of her meal. As Clara returned her to the cradle and tiptoed back to bed the Doctor watched her out of the corner of his eye. She staggered a bit on her way back to him, rubbing her eyes and yawning. He felt an uneasy guilt at the sight over the way he’d shut her down about the book—but he felt something else, too, something softer and stronger and _proud_.

     Oh, how he loved this woman. His companion, his wife, his better half. His Impossible Girl. 

     He stretched out his arm, a wordless invitation. A smile crept over Clara’s face; she climbed onto the mattress and burrowed herself into his side. She fit so perfectly against him. Her foot brushed his leg as she tipped her head back, letting him kiss her forehead. 

     “There’s something botherin’ you,” she whispered, sliding her fingers underneath the open collar of his nightshirt. “Something you’re not telling me. But you will.”

     The Doctor frowned. “Will I?”

     “Mm-hmm, she sighed, nestling her head in his shoulder. “You always do.”

     Her hair smelled sweet and faintly of citrus. He buried his lips in it and breathed deeply. He’d longed for that smell every day he was trapped in his confession dial. Sometimes the memory of her lying in his arms like this had been the only thing that kept him fighting. 

     _I’ll tell you…soon_ , he thought, moving his thumb in slow, gentle circles along the curve of her shoulder as she drifted to sleep. _And you’ll want to kill me when I do. But I’ll always protect you, my Clara. You and our baby both._

_No matter what happens, I will always protect you._

 

* * *

 

The next morning Clara sat in front of the vanity on the other side of the room, pinning her hair back from her face while she watched the Doctor and Jodie in the mirror with growing amusement. Jodie, unlike her parents, had no Victorian wardrobe. Clara was still reluctant to dress her in anything but soft, warm onesies, especially since they’d learned that Jodie had inherited her father’s lower body temperature, and the Doctor had just finished buttoning her up in the pink one with the strawberries scattered all over it. 

     And then, because he was a big old softie who couldn’t help himself, he’d started tickling the baby. Clara’s heart absolutely melted at the sound of their daughter’s giggles. Jodie had started laughing last week, and almost always it had been for _him._

“You’re becomin’ quite the charmer, y’know,” Clara said, sliding a pin into the gathered hair above her ears.

     “You don’t need much skill to charm a baby,” the Doctor replied smugly. “When it comes to English queens and schoolteachers, on the other hand…”

     Clara smirked at him in the mirror. “Shut up.”

     “Yes, ma’am.”

     This time _she_ giggled as she stood up, smoothing the front of her simple white blouse already tucked into her high waistband. The last time she’d been here she’d looked _fabulous_. Now she was a nursing mum; “fabulous” had to yield to “practical.” She did a little spin in her Victorian boots. 

     “How do I look?” she asked. 

     “Bit like a suffragette without your bustle and with your hair down like that.”

     “Well, I’m not goin’ out so I didn’t think I needed to put my hair all the way up—”

     “ _I_ like it,” the Doctor said, lifting the baby and balancing her, stomach-down, on his forearm. Jodie grunted happily and grabbed a fistful of his sleeve, trying to cram it in her mouth. Clara smiled up at him and wound a finger around her loosened hair. 

     “Well, Doctor, I didn’t know you had an opinion on my hairstyles.”

     “Of course you did. I had an opinion when you chopped it all off.”

     “Yeah, you did like that one. You said it made me look ‘more Clara _ish._ ’ ”

     “It did.” He smirked and, with his free hand, trailed his fingers through her hair. “And I have to say, I wouldn’t mind if you did it again.”

     Clara raised her eyebrows in surprise. She hadn’t had a haircut since Jodie was born, but she hadn’t thought he’d noticed, either. “You really like it shorter, don’t you?”

     “Well, it’s more practical. Better for runnin’.”

     “We agreed we weren’t going to run much until Jodie was older.”

     The Doctor blinked a little too fast. “Ah. True. But still practical! And she wouldn’t be able to pull it as easily, right? Do you see her pulling _my_ hair? No. You should get it cut again.”

     Clara laughed. “She’ll be pulling _your_ hair every which way as soon as she gets old enough to hold her own head up. You’re startin’ to look a bit like Einstein.”

     The Doctor snatched his hand out of her hair and started raking it through his own—which, of course, only made it worse. Clara giggled at the sight of his silver curls standing up on end. She reached up and smoothed them down, trying at the same time to avoid looking him in the eye while she did it. She could tell he was watching her, and she knew from experience that if she got caught in that intense gaze she wouldn’t be able to think straight for a good five minutes. 

     “There,” she said, dropping back on her heels. “Who needs a stylist when you’ve got me?”

     “Who needs _anyone_ else when I’ve got you?” he murmured. 

     “Oi—careful now. Sometimes I’m at work or the grocery and _you_ have to know how to play with other people—so don’t say things like that.”

     “You know what I mean,” he said, winding his free arm around her waist. 

     She couldn’t help a smile. “Yeah, _I_ know what you mean. Just keep that brain-to-mouth filter switched to the ‘on’ position, okay?”

     He smiled and bent his long, lanky self towards her; Clara happily stood on tiptoe to meet him halfway and cupped his cheek in one hand as he kissed her, gentle and lingering—until an unmistakable, explosive sound erupted from Jodie’s diaper. Clara pressed one final, desperate-to-avoid-reality-for-five-more-seconds kiss to her husband’s lips before she drew back. 

     “And that’s the first soiled diaper of the morning,” she said ruefully. “We’d better freshen her up before we show her off to Vastra and Jenny.”

     “You’re a very good mother, Clara Oswald,” the Doctor said as she dashed back to the vanity for the diaper bag. Clara unzipped the bag, reached in for a new diaper, and smiled at him. 

     “And you’re a very good father, Doctor,” she replied proudly. 

 

* * *

 

Vastra and Jenny were absolutely _besotted_ with Jodha Elena Oswald-Smith—which meant Clara and the Doctor both got a chance to enjoy their breakfast without either of them having to hold the baby. At the moment Jenny had possession, offering her index finger to Jodie’s surprisingly firm grasp and whispering sweet nothings to her. Vastra sipped her tea with a fond smile on her face. Strax observed suspiciously. 

     “She has grown since I saw her last,” he grumbled. 

     Clara laughed. “Strax, you only saw her last night!”

     “I know. And she has grown.” He peered at her and the Doctor. “Are you _certain_ she isn’t an alien life form who’s brainwashed you into _thinking_ she’s your offspring?”

     “Oh, believe me, I’m _quite_ sure,” Clara muttered, thinking of the long hours she’d spent pacing the floor of a Gallifreyan hospital, sweating and groaning through contractions. “She’s definitely ours, Strax, don’t worry.”

     “And that is another thing that puzzles me,” Strax said, turning his attention to the Doctor. “I simply cannot envision _you_ engaging in a reproductive act with—”

     “Strax!” Vastra cried, clinking her teacup back into her saucer. “I believe we could use some more marmalade.” 

     Clara buried her blushing face in her teacup and glanced out the corner of her eye at the Doctor. _His_ face had gone completely expressionless, but she was pretty sure he’d turned a shade darker as Strax obediently rose and waddled from the room. Jenny pressed her lips together. Vastra shifted uneasily in her seat. 

     “My apologies,” she muttered as soon as Strax was out of earshot. “Sontarans, as you know, are not famous for their…discretion.”

     The Doctor cleared his throat. The sound destroyed Clara’s quivering composure: she choked on her tea. Jenny dissolved into helpless giggles; even Vastra tried not to smile and failed miserably. The Doctor drew himself up in his seat with the frigid dignity of a wind-beaten mountain. 

     “In my experience, Strax has a healthy imagination,” he grumbled. “Once he finds a way to wrap his mind around the concept he’ll be trying to purge his brain for weeks.”

     Clara threw herself back in her chair and _howled_ with laughter. Jenny shook from head to toe, crimson and breathless, while Vastra shook her head and clicked her tongue affectionately.

     “Honestly,” she said, reaching for the teapot, “I will never understand humanity’s love for the ridiculous, especially when it comes to basic biology.”

     “Trust me, their talent for innuendo only gets worse,” the Doctor said. Clara kicked him under the table. Vastra smirked. 

     “Well, be that as it may, you have certainly produced a _beautiful_ child. And so well-behaved!”

     Clara snorted. “Says everyone who doesn’t get up with her at least three times a night.”

     “Oh, but it’ll get better,” Jenny said eagerly. “It always does. I remember when my littlest sister was no bigger than she is now, and by the time she was five or six months old she’d settled comfortably in her own schedule—and sleeping almost all the way through the night.”

     “In the meantime,” Vastra said, patting Clara’s hand, “savor this time, no matter how exhausting it may be. She will never be this small again.”

     Clara smiled. “That’s what my stepmother keeps telling me, but it’s a lot nicer comin’ from you.”

     Vastra returned the smile and settled back in her chair. “Tell me, Doctor, was your reading satisfactory last night?”

     The Doctor shifted. Clara peered at him as discreetly as she could. 

     “Ahhhm…yes, I’d say so,” he began slowly. 

     “And have you come to a decision as to your next course of action?”

     This time Clara didn’t bother to be discreet. She stared at him with her mouth full of buttered toast. He flicked his blue-grey eyes in her direction and quickly looked away again. 

     “I’m still thinking about it,” he muttered. 

     “Well, what’s there to think about?” Vastra demanded. “I certainly don’t think the Executioners are a benevolent species! And if they’re making underhanded deals with the Daleks and tormenting Time Lords for their own gratification—”

     “ _What?_ ” Clara interrupted. “Doctor, what is going on?”

     The Doctor said nothing and simply fixed Vastra with a long, exasperated glare. She blinked in surprise and sat up very straight. 

     “Oh,” she said, unsure where to look. “I didn’t realize you hadn’t told Clara…”

     “Told. Me. What?” 

     The Doctor set his napkin on the table and scraped his chair back. “What do you say to a turn around the garden, Mrs. Smith?”

     Clara stared up at him, then at Vastra and Jenny. Vastra looked uncomfortable and apologetic; Jenny, still bouncing Jodie gently in her arms, bit her lip and looked away. 

     _They know something I don’t—and whatever it is, it’s_ bad _._

 _Why hasn’t he told_ me _?_

Without a word she stood and slapped her palm against the one the Doctor offered. He closed his fingers over hers and led her firmly through the open French doors and into the garden behind the house. The morning was crisp; Jenny’s roses glistened with chilly dew; the small tree at the far end of the yard already had yellowing leaves.

     “What’s going on?” she demanded as soon as he shut the doors behind them. 

     “I got a message from Romana yesterday.”

     “Romana? Is she all right?”

     “Oh, she’s fine,” the Doctor said, linking her arm through his and leading her down the gravel path. Romana—one of his past companions and now the President of Gallifrey—was on his list of people who could take care of themselves and who he didn’t need to worry about _whatsoever_ (or so he claimed). “You know she’s got people lookin’ out for Gallifrey’s security. Spies, I suppose they are. People whose all-consuming purpose in life is to make sure Gallifrey’s not preyed upon at the end of the time continuum—”

     “And you’re telling me this because…?”

     The Doctor’s jaw flexed; he fixed his narrowed eyes straight ahead. Clara paused, forcing him to stop, too, and positioned herself in front of him. 

     “Doctor, look at me,” she whispered. “What did Romana’s people find?”

     He exhaled slowly. “They intercepted a transaction of sorts between these Executioners—the ones Vastra mentioned—and the Daleks. The Executioners, they’re…they think it’s their God-ordained job to kill people.”

     “Criminals?” Clara prodded. 

     “No, just anybody they fancy.” The Doctor scowled. “No judge, no jury…just Executioners. I was readin’ up _them_ on last night. They’ve got their own planet—a deceptively lovely place by all accounts—and they seem to take great pleasure in what they do. They’ve practically made it an art form. It’s sick, Clara.”

     “Well, _I’ve_ never heard of ‘em before and I wholeheartedly agree. But you still haven’t told me why this concerns Romana _or_ us. What kind of deal did they make with the Daleks?”

     The Doctor opened his mouth—and shut it. Clara stared in utter confusion as he stepped away from her, rubbing his face, raking both hands through his hair, and finally pausing with his back to her and his hands over his eyes. 

     _Oh God, he’s about to tell me something horrible._

“Okay, listen!” he cried, hurrying back to her and clasping her hands close to his chest. “Do you trust me, Clara?”

     She frowned. “Depends on what you mean by that.”

     “Do you trust me to take care of you and Jodie?”

     Clara rubbed his hands with her thumbs. “ _Yes_. Yes, I trust you on that.”

     “Do you trust me to go into a dangerous situation with a watertight plan?”

     She snorted. “No, not at all.”

     “Good. I’d have had your brain checked if you’d said otherwise.”

     “ _Doctor…_ ”

     “The Daleks sold Missy to the Executioners.”

     Clara’s mouth fell open. The Doctor looked hard at her, his eyes darting all over her face in a frantic attempt to gauge her reaction. She raised her eyebrows feebly. 

     “Missy is still…alive?” she rasped. 

     “I know, I was surprised too.”

     “But—but where—I thought she—”

     “Like I told you once,” the Doctor muttered irritably, “she has an uncanny knack for turnin’ up alive no matter what the universe throws at her. Apparently she’s been in one of the Dalek concentration camps. The Executioners offered Davros a sum he couldn’t refuse, so…” He gestured with his hand as if it were a ship taking off from a landing pad. “Off she’s gone. Condemned to death.”

     Clara frowned. “Seems like she’s been hurtling towards this conclusion for a while now.”

     “Maybe,” the Doctor murmured, dropping his gaze to their clasped hands. Clara studied him a moment before it dawned on her. 

     “You want to rescue her.”

     “Clara, listen…”

     “No no no,” she hissed, glaring up at him. “No, you listen to _me_ , Doctor. She is a _murderer_! If she didn’t actually kill Danny Pink with her bare hands she _certainly_ didn’t let him rest in peace—and then she tried to kill me—and how many times has she tried to kill _you_? How many times is she gonna threaten everything you and I hold dear before you realize that she’s too far gone?!”

     “No one’s ever too far gone,” the Doctor said softly. “There’s always room for mercy.”

     “Mercy that she has consistently thrown back in your face!” 

     “Do you want me to just let her die? Since when do I let _anyone_ just die without a fight?”

     Clara stopped, suddenly unsure. She thought about mentioning Ashildr in a kind of you-intervened-there-and-look-how-that-turned-out sort of way, but quickly decided against it. The Girl Who Died—who still reigned supreme on Trap Street with her memory wiped of all recollection of Clara’s death—remained a tender subject with him. But the very fact that he even _had_ this weathered face was a resounding testament to his merciful streak—and Clara had never known him to turn his back on anyone. Not even Davros. 

     And Missy _had_ helped him defeat the wizened old Dalek-Creator. _Right before she tried to kill me, of course._

Or was that _really_ what she’d been doing? What was it Missy had actually said on Skaro? _“In a way, this is why I gave her to you in the first place. To make you see. The friend inside the enemy, the enemy inside the friend. Everyone’s a bit of both. Everyone's a Hybrid…”_

     Clara frowned, trying to sort through her racing, conflicting thoughts. Cybermen in London…the confrontation in the cemetery…Danny…planes in the sky…Daleks…pointy sticks and smelly sewers and Missy protecting her one minute and throwing her in harm’s way the next…

“Once we’ve got her out of there, then what?” she asked quietly. 

     “I actually haven’t hammered out all those details yet, but I do have a bit of a plan.”

     “I’m willing to hear the ‘bit.’ ”

     The Doctor cleared his throat. “Well, I’m pretty sure it would involve faking her death. Probably wouldn’t be able to sneak her out otherwise. But they have this one…condition.”

     “Yes?”

     “Executing a Time Lord requires the presence of another Time Lord, apparently. And the other Time Lord has to swear an oath to guard the body of the dead Time Lord. In a Vault. For a thousand years.”

     Clara jerked her wandering gaze back to him so fast, he jumped. 

     “A thousand years?!” she cried. 

     “Told you you wouldn’t like it.”

     “You never said that!”

     “I thought it—same thing, practically.” 

     “Can you keep the Vault in the TARDIS?”

     “No. It’s not designed for time travel—in fact, it’s actually built _against_ it.”

     Clara’s mouth went dry. “So…if we rescued Missy and if we kept her in the Vault we’d have to guard it for a thousand years…away from the TARDIS?”

     “Poooooossibly—no no wait wait wait, Clara!” he cried, grabbing her arms as she tried to jerk away from him. “Remember what I told you the night you ran away with me at Christmas, how you said Danny knew you’d never be able to keep that promise about never telling anyone else ‘I love you?’ You remember that? This’d be like that—a promise I never mean to keep—”

     “ _No!_ ” Clara cried, freeing herself with a furious sweep of her arms. “Oh no—if you’re gonna do this, Doctor, you had better be willing to abide by the terms! No cheating this time! And you had better be sure you’re willin’ to give up all our adventures through time and space for a thousand years—for _her_!”

     His gaze drifted to the ground, his mouth quirked to one side. Clara put a hand to her forehead and spun away. She didn’t understand it, she would never understand it. Her sense of justice _recoiled_ over it—and there was something new boiling in her chest, too, something she hadn’t had to think about on Skaro. 

     _Jodie._ That precious little baby, that magnificent, miraculous hybrid of Time Lord and human who was as much a child of Earth as she was of Gallifrey. Clara Oswald would die again and again for her, as surely as she died again and again for the Doctor long ago— _and I don’t want Missy to even know she exists._

 _But this_ is _what you signed up for, Clara. You don’t walk away. You_ never _walk away. You are guarding something precious, yes—and the Doctor knows it, and he loves her just as much as you do._

 _But in some weird way you will never understand, Missy is precious to him, too. And_ you _love_ him _more than anything, and you know good and well it’s that fearless mercy of his that made you fall in love with him all those years ago._

_Maybe—just maybe—an act of mercy like this will prick Missy’s conscience and force her to mend her ways._

_Impossible? Maybe. Oh, who am I kidding?!—_ probably _!_

_But we dream the impossible dreams, don’t we?_

     Clara exhaled and turned on her heel to face him again. The Doctor glanced up, wary. 

     “I won’t live for a thousand years, Doctor,” she murmured. “Your mother says that regeneration energy they used to bring me back will give me two hundred years at the most.”

     “I know,” he said, so softly he was almost mouthing it. 

     “I won’t live to see you fulfill that oath.” 

     The Doctor swallowed. “Clara…”

     “We have to talk about it sometimes, Doctor! You can’t just brush it under a rug. I _will_ die one day, and you’re asking me to give up our adventures and help you guard a woman I absolutely _despise_ for the rest of my life. You do realize that’s what you’re asking of me, don’t you?”

     “Yes,” he said hoarsely.

     Clara nodded, let out another shaky breath. Slowly, she took a step towards him and then another. The Doctor stiffened, probably afraid she’d slap him—but she only curled her fingers around his waistcoat and forced herself to look him in the eye. 

     “There’s only one reason I’d do something that crazy, Doctor,” she whispered.

     “And what’s that?” he asked nervously. 

     In spite of herself, she felt one side of her mouth tilt up. She laid her palm against his cheek.

     “I’d have to really, really, _really_ love you. And I’d have to be absolutely sure that if there was no TARDIS and that if you couldn’t take me sailing on the most beautiful oceans in the universe, or dining at the second-most fabulous restaurant, or visiting Frost Fairs and Jane Austen and watching the Battle of Agincourt from a distance—and if you were just an ordinary human with one heart and a single lifetime—if I’d still love you and want to be with you for the rest of my life.”

     “I see,” he murmured, still standing very stiff and guarded. “Would you?”

     Clara’s throat tightened. All this time, and he _still_ wondered. She sighed, jumped up on tiptoe, and without caring in the slightest if Jenny and Vastra (or maybe even Strax) might be watching from a window, she pulled him down and kissed him as tenderly as she knew how. To her relief he responded without hesitation, wrapping his arms tight around the small of her back while she ran her hand through his hair and held him close. 

     When she finally pulled back for air neither of them spoke for a moment, content to hug each other and listen to the steadying of their heartbeats. Clara gazed up at the sky, her arms around his neck, his face buried in the curve of her shoulder. 

     “I love you,” she whispered. “I love you so, _so_ much.”

     He straightened and cupped her face in his hands. Clara felt her eyes well up as he stroked her cheeks with his thumbs and smiled down at her with unashamed adoration. She didn’t need him to say it back when he looked at her like that, so when he _did_ speak, her eyebrows shot up in surprise. 

     “ ‘Love.’ Too weak a word for what I feel for you, Clara Oswald.”

     She smiled—a little tearfully, but hopefully he didn’t notice—and dropped a kiss on the inside of his palm. He smoothed her hair while she sighed into another brush of cool autumn wind. 

     “There’s just one thing,” she murmured. 

     “What’s that?”

     “If she so much as _looks_ at Jodie wrong, I’ll kill her.” Clara looked at him sternly. “I mean it, Doctor. I will snap her neck with my bare hands if I have to—and I’ll do it again if she tries to regenerate.”

     “You won’t have to,” he said firmly. “I will never let her hurt you or Jodie. I swear it.”

     Clara nodded. “All right, then. Let’s start plannin’ a rescue mission.”


	2. The Doctor's Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Clara rescue Missy...and an old and slightly-annoying friend makes an appearance.

The place was too peaceful for a planet of killers. No visible prisons, no scaffolds, no guillotines. The Doctor hadn’t even heard a scream since he left the TARDIS hidden at the top of the mountain and climbed down to the lakeshore. He did his best to keep any wary, suspicious glances to a minimum as he followed a tall, slender man in lavish robes to the platform at the edge of the water. 

     Rafando, the man called himself. He smiled too much for someone titled “Executioner.” 

     “Death is an increasing problem,” he explained as he strode a few steps ahead of the Doctor, his voice unbearably cheerful and even more annoying than nails on the TARDIS chalkboard. “With over a billion intelligent species active in this galaxy alone, it is an ever greater challenge to know how to kill all of them. On this planet, we are proud to serve as executioners to every living thing. The destruction of a Time Lord, however, is a _particular_ honor.”

     The Doctor felt a grim scowl carve itself into his craggy features as he studied the dais on the platform. Each corner had a column topped by copper spheres. _Just like Vastra’s book described it: electric transmitters, with five times the power of an electric chair._

     Lethal injection would’ve been quicker and less messy, but hey, he didn’t make the rules here.

     “This technology is precisely calibrated,” Rafando said proudly. “As you can see, it will stop both hearts, all three brain stems, and deliver a cellular shock wave that will permanently disable regenerative ability.”

     “I know how it works,” the Doctor muttered. 

     Rafando looked a bit offended. “You certainly _will_ , in a moment. Following termination, the body will be placed in a Quantum Fold chamber under constant guard for no less than a thousand years…in case of, shall we say, relapses. Life can be a cunning enemy.”

     “Especially for a Time Lord,” the Doctor said, turning a sly eye on the Executioner. 

     This time Rafando frowned; his voice lost the last hint of gaiety. “An additional stipulation of the Fatality Index is that the sentence must be carried out by another Time Lord. Apologies for our choice, but your people are not easy to come by.”

     _“Good thing nobody else knows where Gallifrey is, huh?”_

The Doctor bit the inside of his cheek. Clara had been taking liberties with the nanobud system ever since he left her. Rafando, of course, didn’t hear—and thankfully he also turned his back so the Doctor could fight back a smirk undisturbed. 

     _“By the by, how does it feel having_ your _optic nerve hacked this time, Doctor?”_ Clara teased in his ear. _“I gotta say, I’ve been_ dying _to try this ever since you did it to me that time in Bristol. And this Rafando guy, he’s rather handsome—in a striking, chiseled sort of way.”_

 _Shut up_ , the Doctor thought. He knew the idea had translated through the telepathic nanotech onto one of the TARDIS screens when he heard Clara giggle. 

     _“Don’t worry,"_  she said. _"You’re still the handsomest.”_

Before he could think up a snarky response he heard a door open behind him. He turned, bracing himself, but nothing in the universe could prevent the hard, double thump in his chest at the sight of the small impish figure marching boldly through the opening, flanked on either side by two of Rafando’s men. 

     “Oh!” Missy— _Koschei—_ cried, her voice high and loud with exaggerated shock (though he was pretty sure she _was_ genuinely surprised). “Doctor! I didn’t expect _you_. Thought you’d retired. ‘Domestic bliss on Earth’—that’s the word among the Daleks. What happened?”

     The Doctor frowned. “Nothing at all. My wife sends her regards.”

     _“Oh, don’t make me sound nicer than I am,”_ Clara deadpanned.

     Missy tipped her chin a little higher. “ _Well_. It’s good of her not to hold certain things against me, I suppose.”

     “Don’t be so sure,” the Doctor growled. Missy’s chin came down; her sharp blue eyes glinted up at him through her lashes. Clara, to his surprise, said nothing.  

     “The prisoner will kneel,” Rafando ordered. 

     Missy didn’t move. Rafando glanced at his men and nodded. They stepped up and reached out for Missy, but she threw out her arms and tossed her head dramatically. 

     “ _Right_ ,” she murmured, stepping onto the dais and kneeling in the middle of her platform, her burgundy skirts pooling around her. The Doctor mounted the dais after her, fixing himself in front of her as the water rippled a few yards away and splashed around a rising, obsidian cube. 

     “The Quantum Fold chamber is prepared,” Rafando said. “The sentence will now be carried out. Executioner?”

     The Doctor glanced at Missy. She had her face slightly turned away, but she watched him out of the corner of her eye. There was no hint of a wicked grin on her face, no underlying confidence that he’d save her this time. He reached for the lever at the far end of the dais and closed his fingers around it.

     _This is the plan, this is the plan, stick to the plan, it’s not going to kill her—_

     “Please, I’ll do anything,” Missy blurted.

     The Doctor paused, raised an eyebrow. She swallowed, an embarrassed crimson creeping into her strong, clever features. 

     “Just…just let me live,” she whispered. 

     The Doctor opened his mouth, but before he could speak Rafando turned with a loud rustle of robes. When the Executioner looked back at the two Time Lords, he scowled in bewilderment. 

     “Have you requested a priest?” 

     Missy grimaced. “Well, _I_ haven’t.”

     The Doctor peered towards the lakeshore. He hadn’t noticed the short, cowled figure arriving, but now the stranger pointed at _him_ and gestured for him to come closer. For a moment the Doctor thought about ignoring him— _it’s gonna interfere, we’ve got a tight enough schedule as it is, why can’t things ever go strictly accordin’ to plan, hmm?—_ but something else pricked at the back of his head. Something…curious. He dropped his hand away from the lever. 

     “Apparently, _I_ have,” he murmured. 

     “I shall seek consultation,” Rafando said, clicking away at the device on his wrist. It whirred; Missy sighed, plopped back on her heels. The Doctor shot her a disapproving look. She rolled her eyes and he quickly bit the inside of his cheek to keep back a smirk. 

     _Oh, Koschei. Always irreverent at the worst moments, weren’t you?_

“There are four hundred and twelve precedents in the Fatality Index,” Rafando said. “Divine intervention, therefore, is permitted for a maximum of five minutes. The executioner may now discuss his immortal soul and any peril thereunto.”

     “Five minutes,” Missy repeated, in a tone that suggested it took everything in her from adding something along the lines of “Whoop-dee-doo.” The Doctor stepped around her, meeting her gaze for just a moment as he did. With a light, impatient step at odds with his lined face and silver curls he left the dais and strode towards the cowled figure. 

     _“Who is it?”_ Clara demanded. _“Doctor, be careful…”_

 _Who, me?_ the Doctor thought back, eyes on the stranger. “Who are you, and what do you—”

     “Greetings, sinner. Only in darkness are we revealed.”

     The Doctor froze. The hooded stranger appeared to be folding his hands rather smugly underneath that voluminous cloak. There was no mistaking that voice, no matter how hard its owner tried to disguise it. 

     Somebody—the Doctor would name no names, but hers began and ended with an “R”—had done an _appalling_ job of teaching the not-stranger how to go undercover. 

     “I never sent for you!” he hissed.

     “ ‘Goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage,’ ” the not-stranger murmured. “ ‘Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit—without hope, without witness, without reward. _Virtue is only virtue in extremis_.’ ”

     The Doctor glanced down, his throat tightening. The not-stranger read from the very last page of a very old, blue, battered book, the yellowing pages filled with a delicate scrawl.

     _Her book. Her diary._

_She got to the end._

     “ ‘This is what he believes, and this is the reason above all why I love him. My husband…my madman in a box…my Doctor.’ ”

     The Doctor drew a shuddering breath. The not-stranger lifted his head, flung back the cowl.

     “Your missus wouldn’t approve,” Nardole said matter-of-factly. 

     “How the _hell_ did you get here?!” the Doctor snapped. 

     “Oh, I’ve been keepin’ an eye on you and yours on the explicit orders of your late wife, River Song. Warnin’, though…” The roundish little man— _half-human, half-cyborg, to be precise—_ leaned closer, peering up at the Doctor without a smidgen of fear. “I have full permission to kick your arse.”

    _“Doctor? What do you want me to do?”_

 _Nothing, Clara—it’s just an old acquaintance of mine_. _Or rather, an old annoyance. Perfectly harmless and inconvenient. Sit tight._

Nardole smirked. The augmented fellow had probably heard Clara’s transmission, at least—enhanced computerized hearing and all that. He stepped back and drew the hood back over his bald head.

     “Remember, sinner,” he whispered dramatically. “In darkness, we are revealed.”

     “I regret, gentlemen, this consultation is over!” Rafando called. “The sentence must now be carried out.”

     “Well, take a few more minutes if you like!” Missy cried. “Knock yourself out. Actually, _do_. Do that. Knock yourself _right_ out!”

     The Doctor turned away from Nardole and strode slowly back to the dais. He could practically _feel_ the gears shifting in his brain. Twenty-seven brains, to be exact…three groups of nine, converging in three brain stems…and Missy’s were all about to be fried if he hadn’t calibrated the transmitters properly last night when they first landed…

     _“Be careful, Doctor,”_ Clara whispered. _“I’m reading three more guards just inside that cave Missy just came out of. If they make an appearance, I’m comin’ in.”_

 _You stay right where you are until you’re_ supposed _to come out, Clara._

_“Don’t be an idiot! I’m not going to just sit back and watch you get ambushed!”_

The Doctor pressed his lips together, his pulse quickening at the possibility of an attack. That really _would_ put a cramp in his style. He wrapped his fingers around the lever again. Something in Missy’s face crumbled.  

     “I’ll be good,” she gasped. “I promise. I’ll turn—I’ll turn good! _Please_. Teach me, Doctor. _Teach me how to be good._ ”

     The Doctor froze, startled. Tears. She had tears in her eyes. He’d never seen this face of hers cry before.

     “Crocodile tears,” Romana would probably say with a sniff. 

     “Koschei has been a poor friend to you,” his mother would say, “and too engaging an enemy.”

     “You’re a big ol’ softie, Doctor, you know that?” Clara would say. 

     _And River? What would River say?_

River, too, had been a murdering psychopath once: a trained assassin with a desperate objective to kill the Doctor.

     _And what did I do? Gave her a second chance. Totally married her, too._

_“Goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage. Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit…”_

“Without hope,” the Doctor murmured. “Without witness. Without reward…”

     Missy’s face twisted miserably. “I’m your _friend_.”

     “Makes no difference,” he replied.  

     “I know it doesn’t,” she whispered. “I know I’m going to die. But I _have_ to say it…the truth. Without hope…without witness…without reward… _I am your friend._ ”

     The Doctor set his teeth and pulled the lever. The copper spheres glowed, hissed, and expelled their energy in a converging point on Missy’s torso. She arched her back, collapsed in a heap. The Doctor spun away from the sight, away from Nardole’s accusing eyes, away from the sickly satiation in Rafando’s chiseled face. He suddenly couldn’t breathe.

     This was the plan. This was what exactly was supposed to happen. 

     And yet—and yet, seeing her like that made him feel like dying, too. 

     “On my oath as a Time Lord of the Prydonian Chapter,” he rasped, digging his nails into his palms, “I _will_ guard this body for a thousand years.”

     The guards hurried forward, ready to lift Missy into the Chamber. The Doctor kept his back to them. One trip to its final resting place was all the Vault’s built-in mechanisms would allow—and after that, a thousand years on Earth. 

     A thousand years of loving Clara, cherishing Clara, caring for Clara, mourning Clara…and a thousand years of teaching and loving and guiding their daughter, who’d live well beyond that time and maybe even become a Doctor, just like him…

     “Oi! Get off— _get off!_ I've just been executed. Show a little respect!”

     The Doctor whirled. Missy couldn’t sit upright but her eyes were open and she was _definitely_ looking at him with a rather pleased (if dazed) look on her face. Rafando looked as if a feather could knock him over. 

     “She—she’s alive!”

     “I was just a bit sleepy, all right?” Missy whined. “Let’s not split hairs. Shut up. Night-night.”

     She let her head drop, heavy as a cannonball. Rafando stared at the Doctor, who quirked his mouth to one side.

     “Of course she’s not dead,” he said, half-amused, half-threatening. “She’s a friend of mine. I may have fiddled with your wiring a bit before I ever got here. That’s the nice thing about havin’ a time machine: you can always get to your appointment ten minutes or ten hours early.”

     “You swore _an oath!_ ” Rafando bellowed. 

     “I swore an oath I’d look after her body for a thousand years. Nobody ever mentioned _dead_.”

     “You cannot do this. You will _not_ leave this planet alive!”

     “Do me a favor,” the Doctor said calmly. “The Fatality Index. Look up ‘The Doctor…’ ”

     “You have an entry, just like any other sentient being,” Rafando snarled. 

     “…under ‘Cause of Death.’ ”

     Rafando blinked, consulted his wristbound device. The Doctor watched with a growing sense of smug satisfaction as the man’s face fell, all its fierce fury giving way to a bad case of the jitters. 

     “You do seem to have an impressive record of fatalities credited to you,” the executioner stuttered. “A…a truly remarkable record…”

     The guards staggered off the dais and ran in sheer fright. Rafando whirled. 

     “Where are you going? He's unarmed!” He stopped, eyed the Doctor worriedly. “You _are_ unarmed?”

     “Always,” the Doctor said softly. 

     “You stand alone?”

     “Often.”

     Rafando glared at him. “ _You’re_ the one who should be afraid!”

     “Never,” the Doctor whispered. 

     Rafando flashed a smile. “Have a nice day, then.”

     He leaped off the dais and ran so fast, it would’ve been hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic. The Doctor turned to Nardole, who still stood on the shore. He’d lifted his head so the Doctor could see his face beneath the hood—and he was _smirking_ , the insufferable little pudding brain.

“Nardole, help me move Missy to the Vault,” the Doctor snapped. “And be quick about it—we don’t want them decidin’ we’re too valuable to keep around after all!” 

 

* * *

 

Clara watched the life form readings on the TARDIS console with growing anxiety. Rafando had scrambled off— _good riddance—_ but the three bio-signatures inside the cave remained right where they were, as if lying in wait for some order or sign to stop the Doctor. She adjusted the straps of the baby carrier over her shoulders and darted to the other side of the console. 

     “Lock onto the Vault, lock onto the Vault,” she muttered to herself, hands flying over the controls, fingers punching in information. It gave her a strong feeling of déjà vu: she hadn’t felt _this_ tech-savvy since she hammered away at a laptop in a London café and exposed one of the Great Intelligence’s hubs. She hit one last button and jerked her hands away from the console. Strapped against her torso, Jodie began to fuss. 

     “Teleport ready and waiting, Doctor!” she cried, patting the baby’s bottom soothingly. 

     _“Give me another half a minute,”_ the Doctor replied—out loud this time. _“They didn’t make this Vault easy to get into.”_

“Hope it’s as difficult to get _out_ of,” Clara said. “Shhh, baby girl, shhh…”

     _“How are we doing with those three nuisances in the cave?”_

Clara hurried back to the other screen. “Still there. I think they—whoa, Doctor, they’re coming out!” 

     Even on the thermal reader she could see the cold stone door of the cave opening. She clicked off the filter and split the screen between the TARDIS camera, which gave her a view of the lakeside platform from the top of the mountain, and the Doctor’s viewpoint. The three guards marched out and looked straight at the Doctor as he stepped across the threshhold of the Vault and back onto the platform.

     “You will come with us, Time Lord,” one of the guards said firmly. 

     “Ah-hah-hah, _no_ ,” the Doctor said with the same maddeningly pleasant defiance that had driven Clara crazy so many times. “I swore an oath to guard this Vault—I’m not lettin’ it out of my sight.”

     “Your entry in the Fatality Index contained a piece of pertinent information that suggests this may not be the case.”

     “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

     “The Doctor lies.”

     Clara set her teeth. She couldn’t see the Doctor’s face but she could imagine it. 

     “I’m—not—lying,” he said, his brogue thickening with each word. “And unless you want to find out what a Time Lord is like when he’s very angry, I suggest you take a step or two back.”

     “If you do not come with us we will have no choice but to take you ourselves.”

     The Doctor laughed and turned around. On his side of the screen Clara glimpsed the spartan interior of the Vault; she wasn’t all that surprised to find it bigger on the inside. “I’d like to see you try. Come on, Nardole, we’ve got work to d—”

     The guards lunged, but Clara was quicker. She grabbed the teleport lever and gave it a yank. The TARDIS wheezed, the lights in the center column pumped, and they landed with a _thump_. Jodie froze mid-wail and blinked in wonder at the sudden noise and bursts of light. On the TARDIS camera, the guards lurched back in terror at the appearance of a blue police box that _certainly_ hadn’t been there five seconds ago. 

     “You can have him when hell freezes over,” Clara snarled. She slammed her palm against the intercom. “Doctor? Are you in Deck Eight?”

     _“You make up for your reckless enthusiasm with moments of absolutely_ boring _precautionary measures, Clara Oswald!”_

“ ‘Discretion is the better part of valor.’ ” She flipped a switch. “I’m taking us into the Time Vortex. I’ll be down there in a tick.”

     The Doctor didn’t argue—a good sign that he wasn’t actually mad about her timely intervention. The TARDIS seemed unusually eager to get off the Executioners’ planet, too. She offered Clara no glitches, and within a few short moments they were gone. 

     As soon as they were safe in the Time Vortex Clara breathed a sigh of relief—and Jodie began to really cry. Clara quickly sat down in the nearest chair, unstrapping the baby carrier as fast as she could. 

     “I know, sweetheart, I know, shh,” she whispered, flinging the carrier to the floor and holding Jodie up to her shoulder. “It’s okay, it’s okay…Mummy’s sorry, shhh…”

     Jodie hiccuped and seized a fistful of Clara’s hair. Clara held her head very still and at an angle towards Jodie as she stood, swaying slowly from side to side and rubbing the baby’s back. Jodha, the Doctor’s mother, had said that a half-human, half-Time Lord hybrid would be much more perceptive of her surroundings and the moods of the adults around her than a normal human infant. Clara was suddenly keenly aware of her own racing heartbeat and of the fact that poor Jodie had not only been jostled about in that carrier, but had heard her mother do an awful lot of shouting over her head. She’d probably been frightened out of her mind. 

     “It’s okay,” Clara whispered more deliberately, pressing gentle kisses to Jodie’s head. “You’re safe…Mummy’s got you…Daddy’s safe…it’s okay, love…shhh, Jodie, shhh…”

     Jodie shivered and tucked her little head in the curve of Clara’s neck and shoulder. Clara smiled. She snatched a spare blanket off another seat where she’d left it earlier and draped it over the baby before making her way down to Deck Eight. 

     It was basically a glorified cargo bay. The Vault lay inside, square and huge, its massive doors wide-open. Clara stepped through cautiously, her eyes widening at the sight of a glass enclosure in the center of the room. Its door was open, too, and Missy lay prone on a low, uncomfortable-looking cot inside. The Doctor hovered over her, pressing his fingertips into her temples and the pulse points in her neck and wrists. The fat little man stood at the edge of the enclosure, clasping and unclasping his pudgy hands. 

     “Doctor?” Clara called. 

     He jerked his head up and looked at her over his shoulder. His eyes were wide and frantic.

     “She’s not responding,” he rasped, his fingers pressed hard into Missy’s wrist. “There’s something wrong, she’s not waking up…”

     “But she already did! I saw her—I heard her—”

     “It was a fluke. Like when a computer freezes. It makes one last-ditch effort and then—boom, dead, crashed.” 

     “So you killed her after all,” the fat little man said thoughtfully. 

     The Doctor glared at him so ferociously, Clara quickly stepped into the cell (if that’s what it was) and fixed herself between them. The Doctor _had_ to look at her, and her alone. 

     “What do you want me to do?” she whispered, her head still tilted towards Jodie. 

     The Doctor swallowed so hard she saw his throat contract over his white collar. He glanced at Missy again. His best enemy’s face had turned an unpromising shade of grey. Clara gulped, took a step closer. Jodie tugged her hair, but Missy’s blue-tinted eyelids didn’t even flutter. 

     “Doctor?”  

     “Get the medbay ready?” the Doctor breathed. But it was a question, as if he half-expected her to say “no,” or at least to argue. “She won’t last much longer if I don’t do something—”

     “Of course.” _We’ve gotten this far. Even I’m not about to lose her after all this._ Clara wound one arm securely around Jodie and squeezed his shoulder with her free hand. “I’ll meet you there.”

     The Doctor’s desperate look crumbled a bit. He covered her hand with his. “Thank you.”

     Clara reached up, cupped his cheek in her hand. “Always mercy, eh, Doctor?” she whispered. Before he could respond she hurried away, brushing past the fat little man and darting back into the peaceful warmth of the TARDIS. 

     “Okay, Old Girl,” she called, holding Jodie tightly and breaking into a run. “Let’s save a Time Lady.”


	3. Missy's Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor introduces Missy to a very important little person...and makes her swear an oath of her own.

Frantic, frenetic activity—it had always kept the Doctor’s nerves from snapping in the past, and he put the old methods to good use in the TARDIS medbay. If he flung bottles, syringes, vials, and packages around and snapped less-than-benign instructions to Clara and Nardole, neither of them made a peep about it. They just obeyed, handing him instruments and medicines when he called for them, and stayed out of his way when he needed them at a distance. 

     Well, except for that one instance when the Doctor found his hands trembling as he drew up and injection, and Nardole ventured an exasperated, “Oh here, let me help.” But before he got any closer and before the Doctor could so much as shoot him a murderous glare, Clara grabbed the back of his hood and yanked him back. Nardole had squeaked—and taken the hint. 

     _Calm down, Doctor. You know how to give an injection. You’re not a complete ignoramus, you’ve done this a thousand times…_

But his heartbeats still thundered as he slipped the needle into Missy’s delicate vein. He’d realized as soon as they got her into the medbay that one of her hearts had stopped beating; that explained her faltering pulse. He’d started it again with the defibrillator, and now this injection would ( _should_ ) keep it going. 

     _Come on, Missy. Don’t give up on me now._

He tossed the used syringe onto the floor and rubbed Missy’s wrist, working the medicine into her bloodstream and staring at the screen above her head. One heart worked overtime; the other still struggled. But as he watched, through minutes that seemed like hours, that second heartbeat started beating a little harder, then a little faster. The Doctor held his breath.

     “Is that normal?” Clara whispered as Missy’s pulse continued to speed up. 

     “Y’know how you used to have to crank car engines back in the early twentieth century?” the Doctor mumured. 

     “Yeah?”

     “That’s what she’s doin’.” The Doctor felt a desperate grin cracking over his face. On instinct he laid a hand on Missy’s head and stroked her hairline with his thumb. “Come on, Missy, _come on!_ ”

     The pounding heartbeat reached a climax—and then slowly, oh-so-slowly dropped to a steady, resounding rhythm. The Doctor exhaled and closed his eyes. He heard Clara rush to him and felt her hand on his arm. 

     “Doctor?”

     He turned towards her and enveloped her in such a tight hug that she let out a startled “Oof!” and then proceeded to rub his back in slow, comforting circles. “It’s okay…hey, hey…”

     He forced himself to stand upright and look at her, keeping his hands on her waist for grounding purposes. He felt exhausted. Utterly drained. Clara held his face in her hands for a moment and looked him in the eye. 

     “You did it. She’s alive, she’s gonna make it.”

     “Where—” He stopped, grimaced, cleared his throat. His voice sounded like he’d been gargling gravel. “Where’s the baby?”

     “Sleepin’. The TARDIS gave her a bassinet, right there in the corner. You all right?”

     “I’m all right.”

     “You sure?”

     He didn’t reply. Instead he looked beyond her to Nardole, who watched them with wide-eyed curiosity. The Doctor wasn’t sure whether to be offended or amused by it. It used to drive River crazy when she’d catch Nardole observing them like they were laboratory experiments on Darillium. The memory made something in him soften towards the cyborg…a little. 

     “Clara, Nardole,” the Doctor said, clearing his throat again. “Nardole, Clara Oswald.”

     Clara spun around, flashing one of her best, most professional, most welcoming smiles. She even held out her hand. “Yes— _sorry_ —just wasn’t much time for actual introductions before.”

     “Pleased to finally meet you in person, New Mrs. Doctor,” Nardole said, taking her hand. 

     A quizzical little half-smile, half-frown crossed Clara’s face. “Ah. Umm. Okaaaaay…”

     “Nardole was River’s companion,” the Doctor mumbled. “And he obviously thought we really were planning on executing Missy, but he swooped in to save the day—or our consciences, I suppose. A regular man of the hour, you are.”

     “Thank you!” Nardole said, sticking his chest and belly out with pride.

     “But we _weren’t_ planning on killing Missy,” Clara said. “The Doctor was just pretendin’ to play along with the Executioners so he could get close enough to the platform. We’d already rigged the electric columns.”

     Nardole blinked. “ _Oh!_ I see. So you were just…playacting?”

     “Exactly,” the Doctor said, dragging out each syllable. “We didn’t _need_ saving.”

     “Although we appreciate someone looking out for us,” Clara added, shooting him a look that ordered him, clear as day, to _Be nice_. “It’s not often we meet someone determined to hold us up to a higher mark.”

     “Well, I was just doing my duty,” Nardole said with a firm nod. “Professor Song was very insistent about it. She said to keep an eye on you and Miss Oswald from a discreet distance, Doctor—and the minute I saw any signs that _you_ were about to cross Certain Moral Boundaries, I was to jump in and drag you back by the scruff of your neck if necessary. Kinda lost track of you ‘bout a year ago, though. That was disconcerting.”

     “Trap Street,” Clara said, turning eagerly to the Doctor. “He’d have lost us on Trap Street, and then I was on Gallifrey and you were—”

     The Doctor looked at her and she stopped right there. She snapped her mouth shut and began rubbing her palms together as she turned back to Nardole. 

     “Anyway,” she said in a quieter, gentler tone, “I hope we’ve made your assignment a little easier lately.”

     “Oh, you have! You’ve stayed in the same place long enough for me to get m’self oriented—which is nice.”

     “You have a time machine of your own, then?”

     “Eh, more like a glorified time vortex manipulator. Courtesy of Professor Song, of course.”

     “ ‘Cheap and nasty time travel,’ ” Clara muttered, darting a sly, meaningful look at Missy. The Doctor frowned, but she didn’t elaborate; she only clapped her hands together and looked between him and Nardole. 

     “Well,” she said, brightening a little, “who’s up for a bite to eat? I don’t know about either of you but I’m _starved_.” 

     “Ooh, me!” Nardole cried. 

     _No surprise there_ , thought the Doctor. 

     “Right then,” Clara said. “You know your way around the TARDIS, Nardole?”

     “I am proud to say I do, Miss Oswald.”

     “Then I’ll meet you in the kitchen, if you don’t mind.” 

     Nardole frowned, then raised his eyebrows and nodded with a very knowing look. As soon as he toddled out of the medbay the Doctor braced himself for a Clara-sized eruption—but when she turned she didn’t look angry or even the least bit irritated. 

     “River’s companion, huh?” she asked, a sparkle in her dark eyes. 

     “And about as annoying as they come,” the Doctor grumbled, glaring at the doorway. 

     Clara smirked. “Okay, he seems a bit… _insipid_ …but he’s nice, too. And in case you didn’t notice, he was very helpful when you were tearing through here like a thing possessed.”

     The Doctor said nothing and looked at Missy. She lay so still; not even her eyelids fluttered in sleep. He set his teeth and pressed a button on the bed. Thin tendrils of blue light shot up out of the mattress and coiled themselves over her wrists and feet. Clara raised her eyebrows. 

     “They’ll burn if she tries to fight her way out,” he said quietly. “I’ll move her back to the Vault as soon as she’s stable.”

     “When will that be?”

     “A day? Maybe two.”

     “Do you think she’ll regenerate?”

     The Doctor shook his head. “She’d be showing signs of that by now. I think.”

     “So you don’t actually know.”

     He glanced at her, then lowered his head. “No.”

     “That’s okay. We take this one day at a time…one _moment_ at a time.” She reached up and unbuttoned and loosened the collar of his crisp white shirt. He hadn’t realized how much it made him feel strangled. “Relax, Doctor. You’ve been amazing.”

     He sighed. “I guess it’s too late to start wondering if I’ve done the right thing.”

     “Umm, _yeah_ ,” Clara said, a trace of annoyance in her voice this time. “For one thing, I doubt Kate would appreciate you backing out of this plush new job she’s gotten for you at St. Luke’s— and for another, _I_ wouldn’t appreciate going through all this trouble to rescue _her_ only for _you_  to keep me awake at night with your second thoughts. So newsflash, Doctor: you’re not allowed to have second thoughts. I won’t permit it.”

     He forced a small smile. “Yes, Boss.”

 

* * *

 

_Heavy. Can’t move. Tingling. Hurts. Scared…scared…how long since I was this scared…?_

“Missy.”

     The deep, rough voice drifted in through the barely-coherent thoughts dripping like molasses through Missy’s waking mind. Her eyes fluttered open. For a moment or two her blurred vision made out a long, weathered face surrounded by a wild shock of grey hair flecked with black. 

     _Theta._ She tried to form the word with her lips and couldn’t. Her eyelids drooped. She fought it…and failed. 

     Next time, it was much easier. The feverish haze was gone; so was the tingling. Missy opened her eyes and found herself staring at a dark ceiling, carved with the dark grooves of Gallifreyan symbols. Behind the figure in the chair by her bed a soft, silvery light poured in from a window, but everything was blurry, as if she had a film over her eyes. Missy swallowed, turned her head on her pillow—and froze. 

     Her wrists were fastened to the bed. Not with handcuffs—that would’ve been too disgustingly primitive and stupid—but with shimmering blue energy-based restraints that she could feel only as a vaguely uncomfortable warmth whenever she strained at them. If she fought them too hard, they’d probably burn and leave blisters.

     _Probably fed by energy from the TARDIS._ _This_ is _the TARDIS, isn’t it?_

“Yes, this is the TARDIS,” the figure in the chair said in a low, rolling brogue. 

     Missy glanced at him with a start. “Did I ask that out loud?”

     She was a bit startled by the sound of her own voice, hoarse and breathless from disuse. But the Doctor only smiled—she just caught the look in the faint light—and scooted closer to the edge of his chair. 

     “No, you didn’t say it out loud,” he said softly. “But you _think_ loud. You always have.”

     “Naughty boy, reading my mind without permission,” she croaked. 

     The Doctor chuckled. He was holding something in the crook of his arm, but she couldn’t tell what it was. Something was definitely wrong with her eyes: everything was still blurry, out of focus. Missy cleared her throat weakly and tried drumming her fingers on the mattress. The restraints offered no scolding flick of heat. 

     “How long have I been here?” she asked. 

     “Well, it feels like an eternity, but we’re comin’ up on forty-eight hours.”

     “And why aren’t I in the Vault?”

     “Because you needed medical attention I couldn’t give you there.”

     Missy raised a feeble eyebrow. “You should’ve let me die.”

     The Doctor made a quiet, huffing sound. “I’ll admit, I thought about it.”

     Something in her aching chest stuttered a bit at the admission. “Well, what stopped you?”

     The Doctor sighed, looked down at whatever it was he held so tenderly. “Memories.”

     “Of what? Gallifrey?” Missy tipped her head away from him. “Trust me, Doctor, Gallifrey might as well be an empty wasteland for all I care.”

     “It’s not, you know,” he said. “I’ve been back.”

     Missy turned towards him again in surprise before she could stop herself. “You have?”

     A small, wry smile tugged the corner of his mouth. “Those coordinates you gave me? They were for the right space, all right—just the wrong time. I ended up not using them, though. I found my way back a very, _very_ long way ‘round.”

     “I see.”

     “And you’ll be happy to know Rassilon’s gone. Romana and I overthrew him.”

     “Romana? That puny little—”

     “Romana, _my friend_ ,” the Doctor said sternly, “and President of Gallifrey. She’s the one who let me know me the Daleks had handed you off to the Executioners. You might want to think twice about insulting her.”

     “Hmmph. And I suppose she wants you to turn me in now?”

     “Not at all. I made an oath to guard you for a thousand years. Romana’s satisfied with that.”

     He lowered his gaze again to his arms. Missy frowned. “What _are_ you lookin’ at?”

     The Doctor glanced up with a start. “You mean you can’t see her?”

     Missy hesitated, then decided to go ahead and tell the truth for once: she shook her head. The Doctor frowned and stood, looming over her for a moment. Now she could at least see the fat, lumpy bundle in his left arm. He reached out and gently pulled her bottom eyelid down with his free thumb. 

     “It’s probably just the lingering effects of the shock,” he muttered. “Sorry I couldn’t tone it down a few more notches. It had to be convincing.”

     “Never mind that. What do you have there?”

     Again he smiled a strange half-smile. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and as he turned the bundle towards her Missy’s mouth dropped open. 

     _A baby._ An actual baby, with round chubby cheeks and a wealth of dark hair and wide-awake eyes that gazed up at the Doctor with complete trust and contentment. He slipped his finger into the baby’s grasping hand and got a soft coo for a reward. Missy’s throat tightened at the sound. 

     “This,” the Doctor said, “is Jodie.”

     Missy grimaced. “Look, I know you like to run around with Earth girls, but seriously, a _newborn_?”

     He shot her a reproachful look. “She’s _mine_ , Missy. She’s my daughter.”

     “ _Oh_.”

     “Mine and Clara’s,” he added, as if she needed clarification. 

     Missy snorted weakly. “Well, well, well. You two certainly got busy.”

     He smiled. “Is this what you envisioned when you threw us together?”

     “Actually, I was hopin’ for somethin’ a little more exciting.”

     “Like the Hybrid?”

     Missy pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. The Doctor raised his eyebrows. 

     “The Lover of Chaos,” he murmured, peering at her. “You wanted me to tumble into it, too…for Clara. And I very nearly did, Missy. To save her I would’ve destroyed it all.”

     “And do you know, that sounds unbelieeeeevably sexy,” she deadpanned. 

     His eyes narrowed. “I would’ve become a monster if Clara hadn’t saved me first. _That’s_ what you didn’t count on when you threw us together. She means everything to me, yes—but she’s better than me. She makes me better…and she’s given me something I thought I’d never have again.”

     He stroked the baby’s cheek with the back of his finger, and in spite of the frantic resistance from the the vengeful demons still lurking in the back of her head, a distant and tender memory came to Missy’s mind of another little girl—older than this one and certainly not a half-breed, but so joyful, so brimming with life. Missy blinked hard, trying to ease the unexpected stinging in her eyes. 

     “It’s been a long time since you had a child, Theta,” she heard herself say. “Lucky you.”

     The Doctor looked at her again. “Did you mean it? About wanting to be good?”

     Missy gulped. For a moment she wasn’t sure how to answer him. But those tears on the platform—when she’d begged him to teach her how to be like him—she _hadn’t_ forced those tears. She had simply cracked like an old tree in a storm that couldn’t bear the weight anymore of all those years of being bad. 

     _And yet, what else could I ever do? What could I ever_ be _?_

“Yes,” she breathed, eyes stinging. “I…I think I did mean it.”

     The Doctor nodded. He reached down, pressed something on the underside of the bed. One of the hand restraints buzzed and vanished. Before Missy knew what he was doing he grasped her free hand…and rested it on the baby’s head. 

     Missy held her breath. The Doctor held her gaze sternly, ferociously, practically _daring_ her to scratch the soft, velvety forehead. 

     “Swear on my daughter,” he growled. “Swear on _her_ that you will let us teach you how to be good.”

     Missy hated herself for the tear that slid down her cheek. She couldn’t even wipe it away. She sniffled, carefully ran her thumb along the baby’s head. 

     “I swear,” she whispered, “on—on—what did you say her name was?”

     “Jodie.”

     “Thank you.” She tipped her head back against the pillow with as much dignity as she could muster. “I swear on _Jodie_ that I will let you teach me how to be good.”

     She snatched her hand away, suddenly terrified of touching something so fragile _._ Jodie shifted in her father’s arms and craned her weak little neck to the side, following the withdrawn touch with innocent curiosity. Missy shuddered and looked away.

     “I believe you,” the Doctor said gently. “You’re gonna have to go into the Vault, but I swear, I won’t leave you there alone. We’ll look after you, and we’ll teach you how to be good.”

     Missy shot him a withering look through her tears. “ ‘We?’ Who’s ‘we,’ anyway?”

     “Clara and I. Who else?”

     Missy snorted, sniffled again. “She probably can’t stand the sight of me.”

     “No, she can’t,” the Doctor replied. “But Clara is kind. Not always nice, maybe, but _kind_.”

     Missy frowned, confused but too exhausted to pester him about the odd comment. The Doctor hardly ever made much sense when it came to his human companions anyway. He stood, shushing Jodie as she began to fret and nuzzle her face in the front of his hoodie. Missy watched, half-mesmerized, half-desperate to keep them both here. 

     The thought of being alone was suddenly very unnerving. 

     “You’ll bring the Munchkin sometimes?” she asked, well aware of how pathetic she sounded. “Every once in a while?”

     The Doctor hesitated, probably worrying over just how happy Clara Oswald might be about _that_ , but he did nod. He clicked the button again and the restraint reappeared around Missy’s thin wrist. He laid a hand on her shoulder. Missy shivered at the contact.  

     “Sleep well, Missy,” the Doctor murmured, and with one last, long look from those piercing blue-grey eyes of his, he turned and left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter drops tomorrow--and as your sneak peak, it's titled "The Teacher and the Time Lady" ;-)


	4. The Teacher and the Time Lady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue of sorts, in which Clara and Missy have their first discussion since Skaro and the Doctor comes to a few conclusions.

Within a week, it was all settled. Missy recovered enough to go back to the Vault and the Doctor and Clara steered the TARDIS back to Earth. A few days later the Doctor quietly, unobtrusively assumed the position at St. Luke’s that Kate had offered him a year ago when Clara became one of the university’s on-call personal tutors. He had his own office, his own students, and his own “field of expertise,” if you could even call it that. Since the Doctor’s interests ranged from everything to agricultural science to Gothic literature to Venusian mathematics Clara had a feeling he’d probably just pick random topics and run with them. The idea of him sticking with a schedule or any one subject was laughable.

     Nardole decided to stick around long enough to ensure the Vault’s locks were up to his exceptionally high standards. Clara had no objections; the Doctor grumbled, but not enough to make her think he actually minded. Nardole had his charge from River Song to keep, after all. And he _did_ prove to be really good with locks.

     That first night after they’d installed the Vault in the university’s subterranean labyrinth, however, proved rather eventful. 

     The friendly cyborg had retreated once again with his tools to the Vault and Clara had just put Jodie to bed when she found the Doctor sitting at the kitchen table in their flat. He had his head in his hands and a blue-covered journal lying open in front of him. When he heard her footsteps and lifted his head, she saw his eyes red-rimmed and shot through with grief. 

     “She’s gone,” he whispered, shutting the book and sliding it away from him so he wouldn’t have to look at her. “Sorry…didn’t mean for you to find me like this…”

     Clara couldn’t answer. She’d only met a projection of River Song—and she was pretty sure it still existed deep within the TARDIS databanks—but she knew the long, melancholy story of tangled timelines and kidnapped babies and Amy and Rory and Manhattan and Darillium. Nardole’s arrival had brought all those memories to the surface, and the diary’s appearance had confirmed that River had made her final journey. Clara stepped closer to the Doctor, laid a hand on his shoulder. He shuddered and covered his mouth with one hand. 

     “Listen,” Clara whispered, rubbing his shoulder with slow, deliberate movements. “I’m gonna leave you for a bit…let you have some time alone to process this. But I want you to come out when _you_ are ready and not ‘cause you think I’m gonna be peeved with you for mourning your wife, okay?”

     “ _You’re_ my wife,” he muttered behind his hand. 

     “I know, and I thoroughly enjoy it—but she was your wife, too, and I refuse to compete with her memory.” Clara combed her fingers into the thick, wild mess of his hair. “Come to bed whenever you’re ready.”

     He didn’t say anything, but he did pull her hand down and press a long, heated kiss to the center of her palm. Clara needed no further reassurance. With a final, gentle pat of his shoulder she retreated from the kitchen. 

     But she didn’t go to bed; she didn’t even stay in the flat. She put on her coat and stepped outdoors, needing the refreshing breath of the crisp autumn night to clear her head and heart of the abject misery she’d seen in the Doctor’s haggard face. 

     And for some reason she herself couldn’t explain, she went straight down into the catacombs beneath St. Luke’s University. 

     She heard Nardole’s tools clanking and clinking before she spotted him. When he saw her out of the corner of his eye he sprang to his feet in alarm.

     “Oh!—Miss Oswald, you scared me.”

     “Sorry,” Clara whispered, burying her hands in her pockets. “And please, don’t call me ‘Miss Oswald’—it reminds me too much of my old students at Coal Hill.”

     Nardole adjusted his glasses and pondered this a moment. “Bad memories there?”

     “No, not really.” Clara sighed, ran her hand along the intricate grooves of the Vault’s front. “I loved it there. It was my first real teaching job, y’know, apart from nannying my friend’s kids. But I didn’t leave under the best of circumstances. I guess it still stings a bit.”

     “So…good memories that are painful,” Nardole said slowly. 

     “Yeah.”

     “Hmm.” Nardole nodded, thoughtful. “ ‘Everything ends, and it's always sad. But everything begins again too, and that's always happy.’ D’y’know you said that?”

     Clara frowned, shook her head. Nardole grinned. 

     “That crazy old Doctor of yours.”

     “Really?”

     “Mm-hmm. It was after an adventure the two of us enjoyed not long after he said goodbye to Professor Song. Never forgot it, myself. I always thought it was a good sign that maybe he was thinkin’ about finding _you_ again.”

     Clara felt a smile creep over her face. “I love him.”

     “I know. Pretty sure he loves you, too.” 

     Clara’s smile widened; she couldn’t help it. “You think so?”

     “Oh, yes. Ever notice the way he follows you with his eyes? He used to do the same with Professor Song.” The cyborg tapped the front of the Vault with his wrench. “I’m almost finished here, and then I think I’ll try and catch forty winks. I may be all put-back-together-again but a fellow needs his rest.”

     “Could I go in there?” Clara blurted. “Just before, you know…your finishing touches?”

     Nardole blinked. He looked at the Vault, then at Clara, then back at the Vault. 

     “Does the Doctor approve?”

     “Does it matter?”

     “Well, he did swear an oath.”

     “And _I_ promised to help him look after Missy.”

     Nardole considered this. He exhaled slowly, then punched some numbers on the Vault’s keypad. Clara held her breath as the lock clicked and the doors opened with a long, low groan. 

     “Thanks,” she whispered. 

     “I’ll keep watch,” he whispered back. 

     She nodded and stepped inside. The doors shut behind her as soon as she was over the threshhold, but the lock, thankfully, did not click. Clara folded her arms over her chest and strode as confidently as she could to the cylindrical enclosure in the center of the room. 

     Missy sat on a long, low divan inside the enclosure; she had one leg bent towards her, a book propped up against her thigh; her long, frizzy hair was down and draped over one shoulder. As Clara approached she glanced up, but other than that she didn’t move a muscle. Clara’s stomach fluttered a bit but she willed herself to keep her face blank as she paused inches from the glass.

     Silence for a moment or two…and then Missy spoke. 

     “Well,” she said, her voice low and cool. “If it isn’t the Oncoming Storm’s pretty little wife.”

     Clara tipped her head back. Missy closed the book. 

     “You’re an odd exception, you know. He always used to go for the blondes.”

     Clara said nothing. Missy straightened her leg. 

     “On the other hand…he always did have a thing for teachers.”

     “If you’re trying to get a rise out of me, you’re wastin’ your time,” Clara said quietly. “I've seen and done and survived more things than you could ever imagine since the last time we met, Missy—and I’m not afraid of you.”

     “Oh, aren’t you?” Missy crooned, sitting up and tucking her legs to one side. She smirked as she looked Clara up and down, from her messy ponytail to the folds of her coat to the sneakers she’d slipped on when she left the flat. “I understand you weren’t nearly so keen about rescuin’ me as _he_ was.”

     “And I understand you swore an oath on my baby’s head to let us teach you the ways of the good guys.”

     Missy blinked, and a ruthless satisfaction curled deep in Clara’s gut. She stepped even closer to the glass and tapped it with her fingernail. Missy watched with an intensity that would’ve unnerved her once upon a time. Tonight, it only emboldened her. 

     “Wanna know what I’ve been up to since last we met?” Clara asked lightly. “I fought pirates, the Mire, and Zygons. I died, and regeneration energy brought me back. I defied Rassilon to his face and I helped Romana and her resistance fighters whittle away at his tyranny. I watched her and the Doctor turn Gallifreyan society upside down—and in the middle of all of that, I had a baby with a Time Lord—the same Time Lord who _you_ claimed thought of me as a mere puppy.”

     Missy remained silent; her lips had gone even thinner than usual. Clara lowered her hand and looked the Time Lady in the eye. 

     “No,” she said, her tone more brittle now, “I wasn’t keen on saving you. I know a bloodthirsty Zygon mass-murderer-wannabe who was far more deserving of mercy than _you_.”

     “A wonder you didn’t convince the Doctor against comin’ for me, then,” Missy muttered. “It would’ve satisfied your obvious thirst for justice.”

     “It probably would have. Still haven’t forgotten what you did to my boyfriend, by the way.” 

     To Clara’s surprise, Missy’s gaze actually faltered: she blinked and looked hard at the divan’s velvet cushion. Clara folded her arms and settled her weight on one leg. 

     “But here’s the thing, Missy,” she said. “You killed Danny Pink—or had him killed—or just stole his body, I don’t know and I don’t really care—and I went nutters. I was so eaten up with guilt, I tried to manipulate the Doctor into changin’ time and bringing Danny back to me.” 

     Missy looked up, surprise sneaking through her stony expression. Clara swallowed. 

     “Yep. I had it all planned out. I was gonna throw the TARDIS keys into a volcano if he didn’t do what I said. I even thought I’d done it. Thankfully it just in a dreamscape—it didn’t happen in reality—but he knew what I’d been thinkin’ and it was as bad as if I’d actually betrayed him.”

     “So,” Missy murmured. “Extra, extra, read all about it: the Picture-Perfect Control Freak reveals even _she_ has a dark side.”

     “Oh yeah,” Clara said with a shaky, humorless laugh. “And because of that I know I’m _just_ as capable of hurting the Doctor as you are—and _just_ as undeserving of his forgiveness.”

     She laid her palm against the glass. Missy stared at it, then back at Clara. Clara drew a ragged breath and nodded. 

     “Here’s the unforeseeable,” she whispered. “I forgive you. After all you’ve done, Missy… _I forgive you._ ”

     Missy swallowed, visibly and audibly. She drew a slow breath through slightly-parted teeth. Clara let her hand fall back to her side. 

     “Goodnight, Missy,” she murmured, turning away. “Lessons start tomorrow.”

     “Clara.”

     Clara froze, looked over her shoulder. Missy hadn’t moved, but there was a glassy film over her keen dark eyes and her sharp chin wobbled a bit. 

     “Your little girl…” She choked, swallowed, tried again. “She’s quite pretty.”

     “Thank you.”

     “She looks like him.”

     Clara allowed herself a small smile. “She has his eyes, doesn’t she?”

     Missy nodded. Clara nodded back, and headed back to the doors feeling lighter than she had in a long, long time. 

 

* * *

 

The Doctor heard Clara leave. An hour later, his bowed head on his clasped hands, he heard her come back. He listened as she strode quietly past the kitchen and into their bedroom. He heard her rattling around in the bathroom, then her soft, delicate whisper as she soothed and nursed a stirring, hungry Jodie. 

     _“Without hope, without witness, without reward. Virtue is only virtue in extremis.”_

There’d be little reward for Clara at the end of all this. She’d given up a lifetime of adventures so she could help him in this task. He didn’t usually ask his companions for that kind of sacrifice.

     _She’s no ordinary companion, though. She’s your Impossible Girl. She’s been beside you every step of the way in some form or another—and whether or not you deserve it, Doctor Idiot, she loves you. You wouldn’t have asked her to make this sacrifice if you didn’t trust her with every_ _fiber of your being._

The Doctor lifted his head and pressed his clasped hands to his mouth. The blue diary still lay closed in front of him. He drew it towards himself and stared at it a moment, his long fingers splayed over its cover. He’d read it from beginning to end ever since he got back from installing the Vault in its hiding place. Now he scraped his chair back and went into the living room. There was a desk there, and a big, sturdy leather messenger bag Clara had gotten for him—“the perfect bag for a Professor,” she’d explained with a twinkle in her eye. He grabbed the bag and slipped the diary into one of the side pockets.

     There. River could be with him, reminding him to cling to goodness with whitened knuckles if necessary. 

     _“Without hope, without witness, without reward.”_

So much of what he himself did, he did simply for the good. He’d just never considered it like that in a long time. It was fun and often wild and usually 100% insane—but he did it for goodness’ sake, even in those moments when he still wondered if _he_ was a good man. 

     _“Without hope, without witness, without reward.”_

The Doctor set the bag back on the floor and went to the bedroom. Jodie was back in her cradle at the end of the bed, sound asleep and sucking her thumb. Clara was in the bathroom again. The Doctor sat down on his side of the bed and pulled off his hoodie, kicked off his boots. He’d just flung himself onto his back when the bathroom door opened and the light inside clicked off; he sprang upright again and Clara froze in the doorway. 

     “Oh,” she murmured. “Hey there.” 

     “Hey,” he gulped. She looked so small and fragile standing there in a pale-blue, short-sleeved nightie—but the look in her eyes told a much different story. Clara Oswald was anything but fragile. She was fierce, and strong, and brave, and beautiful, and _good_. 

_“Without hope, without witness, without reward.”_

He stood. Clara stayed right where she was, leaning her back against the bathroom doorframe.  He pushed her hair back from her face with the backs of his fingers. 

     “Enjoy your walk?” he whispered. 

     “Yeah,” she whispered back. “I went to see Missy.”

     He raised his eyebrows, startled. “You did?”

     “Mm-hmm.” 

     “You haven’t wanted to see her since I moved her out of the medbay.”

     “I know.” 

     “I could’ve gone with you.”

     “No, she and I needed to talk by ourselves.” In the soft light of the lamp on her side of the bed he saw a thoughtful smile tug at one corner of her mouth. “I think we understand each other now, which is a good step in the right direction.”

     “You…understand each other.”

     “Yes indeed. Never underestimate a brutally-honest woman-to-woman discussion, Doctor.”

     He blinked. “Well. I’ll remember that next time she tries to buck me. I’ll just bring in my secret weapon…the Teacher.”

     Clara laughed—quietly, so she wouldn’t wake the baby. “Sounds good to me.” 

     He smiled, ran his thumb along her cheekbone. Clara shivered a little under the touch, and he suddenly remembered the wide-eyed, playful innocence in her face the first night he met her.     

     “ _You and me, inside that box,_ now _.”_

_“I'm sorry?!”_

_“Oh, trust me. You'll understand once we're in there.”_

_“I bet I will. What is that box, anyway? Why have you got a box? Is it like a snogging booth?”_

_“A what?!”_

_“Is that what you do, bring a booth? There’s such a thing as ‘too keen.’ ”_

“Oh, Clara Oswald,” he whispered. “What have I made of you?”

     Clara slipped her arms around his neck. “What have you made of me? You haven’t made me anything, Doctor. But you _have_ given me something to be—and that’s quite a different sort of fairytale.”

     “You don’t ever wish you could’ve married an ordinary bloke, had ordinary kids, an ordinary job, an ordinary—”

     Clara giggled. “Nope.”

     “I told you you needed a different hobby.”

     “And I told you already had a hobby,” she murmured.

     “It’s a dangerous one, Clara. Anything could happen to you.”

     “That’s what I’ve always counted on, isn’t it?” Clara smiled one of her quite-pleased-with-herself smiles, planted a short, sweet kiss on his lips, and took his hand. “Come on. You, me, sleep.”

     “I’m a Time Lord—I don’t need sleep.”

     “ _Hah_.”

     “ ‘Hah’—what’s that supposed to mean?”

     “It means I’ve been with you long enough to spot Certifiable Time Lord Nonsense the second I hear it. You may not need sleep, but you _like_ it.”

     The Doctor raised an eyebrow, somewhat mollified by her answer. “You know me too well.”

     “I know you better than _you_ know you. Besides,” she added with an arch lift of her own eyebrow, “I think you just like an excuse to cuddle.”

     He smirked. “You really have figured me out, haven’t you?”

     “Oh, not completely—that’s part of the adventure.” She switched off the lamp and kissed him in the dark. “Goodnight, Doctor.”

     “Goodnight, Clara Oswald.”

     She eased herself into a comfortable position on her side, yanked and adjusted her pillow to her liking, and relaxed. The Doctor stayed upright, his long legs folded and his elbows on his knees, until her breathing steadied and fell into an even rhythm with Jodie’s. Only then did he stretch himself out, too, clasping his hands over his stomach and staring at the ceiling. 

     The cruel and evil forces lurking in ever corner of the universe wouldn’t stop just because the Doctor had sworn an oath to guard a madwoman. He’d been around too long to assume otherwise. 

     But until something popped up—until someone sent out that inevitable plea for help—life on Earth might not be so bad.

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A hearty "Thank You" to everyone who's commented and left kudos! They make me smile every time. Hopefully I'll be posting the first chapter for my next story soon. It's currently titled "Space Mom, Space Dad"--and it's turning out really, really amazing and full of Whouffaldi Awesomeness because WE NEED SERIES 10 STORIES WHERE CLARA IS AT ST. LUKE'S WITH THE DOCTOR AND BILL IS THEIR ADOPTED KID OKAY?
> 
> Ahem. Sorry. I have feelings. 
> 
> And Clara will have her own sonic screwdriver, too, so there's that. Told you it would be awesome ;-)


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